There are many collateral consequences to criminal convictions in California, such as barriers to employment, housing, and social services. An additional concern that criminal defense attorneys should consider when advising their clients is the possible immigration consequences of their conviction.

Under Realignment some counties, in which the local justice systems rely heavily on incarceration, are putting extra pressure on their sheriffs to manage their burgeoning jail populations safely. A new fact sheet by CJCJ, suggests four jail population management strategies that could help sheriffs and other justice stakeholders to address these challenges.

According to a new CJCJ report, California’s counties have spent significant resources and jail capacity, often at their own expense, to detain suspected undocumented immigrants who do not have a reported criminal history. Yet if this population is notably law-abiding, why are so many of them in our local jails?

While the enactment of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is an exciting step in our society’s health care reform, its exclusion of undocumented immigrants will only further highlight the disparities that this population faces and induce a chain reaction of increased health care costs for all Americans.